Qantas - in flight shutdown

[Bozzo]

Article in Monday's NZHerald regarding an in flight shutdown on a Qantas 747-200 enroute AKL-SYD.

Quote:

"Rolls-Royce said the engine type had been in service since 1981 and had proved to be one of the most reliable. In that time the engines had accumulated about 13 million hours' service, including more than 2.5 million take-off and landing cycles. "

With those hours and cycles no wonder it was shut down.

[Kaptin M]

What do they say about having to cater to the lowest common denominator?!! :(

RTFQ -
"Rolls-Royce said the engine type had been in service since 1981 and had proved to be one of the most reliable. In that time the engines (type)had accumulated about 13 million hours' service, including more than 2.5 million take-off and landing cycles. " :eek:

[404 Titan]

Captain, can't agree more except to say the doods name speaks for itself.

[betedete]

Kaptin M

Your are right about the first line, however I think that they were meaning that these engines ( the ones on the QF aircraft) had done that time and cycles. Can you imagine the hours and cycles that ALL of those types of engines would have done. I'm sure it would be a lot more.:)

[SMOC]

I think they are talking about every engine in the classic fleet, now I don't know what the maximum amout of classics QF had but say they had 85 engines in the fleet (20 A/C) including a few spares, that's an average of just under 20 hours per day per engine.

[Balding Eagle]

I am surprised that Wirraway didn't post the full article. To tell the fuller story, the article is reproduced below.

A Qantas jumbo jet engine failed on a flight from Auckland to Sydney after the Australian airline did not follow maintenance advice from the engine manufacturer.

The Boeing 747-200 with 131 passengers on board was 45 minutes from Sydney Airport on Tuesday night when the pilot noticed vibrations in the fourth engine and shut it down.

Flight QF44 landed at Sydney about 7.40pm and the aircraft was grounded for 24 hours while engineers inspected the Rolls-Royce engine.

The inspection revealed that the lubricant for the fan blade base had to be replaced.

The lubricant keeps the metal fans flexible, stopping them from grinding on the engine and causing wear and tear.

The problem followed a warning from Rolls-Royce to spray a coating before the lubricant or change the dry-film lubricant on the fan base every 12 months for the 15-year-old engines, model RB211 F24D4.

Before the warning, issued two years ago, airlines checked and topped up the lubricator only every two years.

Qantas engineers were against the coating spray but were investigating wiping the blades clean and putting on a new lubricant.

Aircraft operation executive general manager David Forsyth defended Qantas' safety record and said its shut-down rate was better than the world average.

Mr Forsyth said the manufacturer's warning was a best-practice advisory for maintenance, not an urgent airworthiness directive.

The engine blades had been inspected a month before the failure but the lubricant had not been replaced.

The airline did not have to make the changes but since the engine failure on Tuesday it would now change the lubricant on all of its jumbo jets during maintenance.

Of its 120 jumbos, only 13 older planes were affected by the problem and Qantas had retired four planes and planned to retire another four by the end of the year, said Mr Forsyth.

Rolls-Royce said the engine type had been in service since 1981 and had proved to be one of the most reliable. In that time the engines had accumulated about 13 million hours' service, including more than 2.5 million take-off and landing cycles.




:)

[Bozzo]

Ahhhh....how nice to have a little stir.

Kaptin M, of course it is the engine type (not those particular engines), I am not that naive.

However can you not see the humour in the post and how would non aviation personnel understand the wording given?

[liquid_gold]

120 Jumbos in Qantas ???:confused:

[topend3]

yes, the good old nz herald...not renowned for it's journalistic prowess, seems they have been at it again here....

[Going Boeing]

Apart from the number of "Jumbos", there are other errors in that report so I would question the accuracy of the entire report. It may be the reporter/editor's intention to make QF look bad so that AirNZ looks better after their adverse reporting of AirNZ B744's losing flap panels etc. GB :D

[Balding Eagle]

You don't think there is any chance that QF is not perfect and perhaps a report of this nature presents a little balance ?